


The Shape of Freedom

by SilverNight88



Category: Fantastic Four (Comicverse), MCU, Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drama & Romance, Experimentation, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Human Experimentation, Imprisonment, Love Triangles, Lust, M/M, Psychological Drama, Smut, Unrequited Love, World War II, Yearning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 15:04:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11671509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverNight88/pseuds/SilverNight88
Summary: Set just after World War II super human experiments are imprisoned at a government facility. A young woman falls in love with a man who is from the sea. An imprisoned solider must try to save both men that he loves. Twin brother and sister are pushed to the edge of their sanity and a scientist pays the ulitmate price. These lost souls try to find a freedom that they yearn for.(I wrote this directly after watching the trailer for 'The Shape of Water' movie. This is set in an alernate universe just after World War II with a few changes made. This story mixes both the movieverse (MCU) and the comicverse.)





	The Shape of Freedom

** The Shape of Freedom **

 

**Chapter One**

 

**SUSAN**

When Susan Storm slept she dreamed of water. It surrounded her and made her feel safe. She dreamed of floating and drifting in its warm cocoon of liquid. She wasn’t Susan Storm sister and keeper of her little brother Johnny Storm, she wasn’t the laboratory cleaner who everyone ignored and saw as invisible, she wasn’t a woman to be looked down on with pity by her friends. No she was free and loved and she needed no name no label.

She drifted weightless in the water, dark yet not scary, then a light in the corner of her vision and a monster screamed.

RING RING RING RING

Susan shot up in bed at the sound of her alarm. She quickly turned it off before Johnny could wake. Her brother had a fiery temper. She quietly slipped out of her bed and put on her house slippers and robe. She crept into the kitchen and made breakfast setting the table perfectly it looked amazing but she felt she needed a fresh cut flower from her small garden. Two steps out of the back kitchen door was all it took to reach her flower bed. The small town home she and Johnny had been left by their deceased parents. She chose a water lily and with a careful snip of her scissors she took only what she needed and nothing more. She smiled as she raised the beautiful flower to her nose and inhaled its soft fragrance.

The small silly smile on her face dropped when she entered the small kitchen and found her brother sitting in her chair with a floozy in his lap. They were both eating Susan’s carefully made eggs and toast. They giggled as they fed each other and gave each other sips of her favorite hand squeezed orange juice. They acted as though they were honeymooners and were the only ones in the house. Susan gripped the flower in her hand and let a curtain of her blonde hair hide her face as she tried to sneak past them into her room.

“Oh hey sis!” Johnny called out, “The eggs were a bit undercooked, and you know I don’t like the yolks runny. Next time can you cook it a little better? And make extra for Janet here? The girl is as light as a wasp.”

Janet giggled as Johnny shifted her in his lap her short cut of brown hair was very fashionable. Johnny kissed her on the cheek and she dribbled juice on his head. They laughed at their playfulness. Susan didn’t say anything, she only nodded and then she continued on to her room. When she got inside she threw the flower to the ground and shuddered. It was easier when Johnny was younger.

When their parents died they had left the two siblings some money and the house. Susan had used her money to support herself and Johnny while keeping Johnny’s money safe until he turned 18 which was to be very soon. Susan was only 25 but she had claimed custody of her brother when she was 19 after the horrible car accident that had claimed their parents lives had changed hers forever.  The last 6 years had been very hard on her as she tried to raise her brother right. She had done pretty well. Johnny was smart yet naive and now that he had discovered women he seemed to think that it was ok to bring them home whenever he wanted. He wasn’t the scared 12 year old anymore he was a man now.

Susan was glad that the war was over so she didn’t have to worry about Johnny going off to fight Nazis. Now she couldn’t even handle that he was living his life to the fullest and she was his invisible shadow who cooked, cleaned, and took care of the house for him. When she wasn’t working that is. Now she had dressed into her maids’ uniform and put on her coat. She ran out of the door so that she wouldn’t have to see the happy couple kissing.

She was a little jealous of Johnny finding love and happiness with whoever he wanted. Her lonely heart yearned for someone to look at her. To _see_ her. She sighed as her steps took her to the city bus stop. She was hungry but didn’t want to miss her bus. As she hopped on she tried to take up as small a space as she could. She was anxious around other people and hated making contact. When she got to the government building where she worked she stopped only for a few moments to buy a bagel in a small coffee shop. She ate quickly and ran inside. She almost bumped into the man in front of her who was waiting in a long line just like all the other employee.

“Susan! Susan come on.”

Jenifer Walters was another woman who worked with Susan as a cleaner and she waved from her spot in the front of the line. Susan gave the other people who stared at her an apologetic look but scurried over to her friend who let her go ahead of her.

Jenifer had taken Susan under her wing since day one, she was a large woman who everyone was a little afraid of and she was very strong. Susan admired her and wished she could be like her but now it was time to get to work.

Susan, Jennifer and the rest of the morning cleaning crew went to their assigned areas and got to work. They cleaned up the messes made by the scientists who worked on their experiments through the nights. They only stayed in the designated areas and never went onto the restricted area that was closed off to everyone except those with the highest clearance.

The government did secret experiments back in those closed rooms. Susan was a bit afraid of them. She had once seen a man with only one arm and other was just a stump that ended at his shoulder wheeled in there and three days later he came out with a metal robot arm and was a crying mess. Jenifer told her that they made weapons out of people back there. That they took soldiers and made them into living weapons to be used against their enemies. Although the war was over and the Allies had won over the Axis powers and Hitler had been killed the truth was that there was always going to be another war and this time the government of the USA wanted an edge.

Jenifer had once told Susan that years back she had seen a young man who was all scrawny and skinny be taken back there. There had been screaming and yelling for hours. The lights had dimmed and everyone who worked that day was quiet. When Jennifer had next seen the people who went into the back rooms she saw that they had turned the scrawny little man into a tall fit solider. She always told Susan no matter what she saw or heard that she was never to let anyone know that she had any idea of what might be happening.

“I don’t want to lose you Susan and these scientist and military men are dangerous.”

Susan had nodded her head in a promise and Jennifer had given her a tight hug. So no matter what Susan saw, a boy who screamed about spiders or a man with metal claws shooting out of his knuckles she kept quiet and was invisible to everyone. But her heart yearned for freedom.

  

 

**NAMOR**

Namor huddled at the bottom of his tank, the water was wrong again, not enough salt. His gills breathed in the water and he brought in the much needed oxygen into his lungs. He wore only a small green speedo the only thing his captors had given him. His ankle wings fluttered as he tried to tuck into himself. He was tired and wanted sleep.

They were moving him again.

The large metal tank he was in shook again and he was jostled against the side. He moved himself back to the center of the tank again. It was like being in a coffin completely encased in metal. There only one small window that brought in a meager amount of light. It made no difference other than for his captors to check in on him. His eyes didn’t need that light he could see in even the murkiest and darkest of waters.

The tank seemed to rumble now a constant swaying motion as they trundled along. He had no room to move freely and everything he tried would make his body scrape along the inside of the cold metal hull. Namor wanted to ride the waves and dive to oceans deepest depths. His heart yearned for the open seas again, to be free.

 

 

**STEVE**

Steve sat in his cell and drew a hamster wearing a Captain America outfit running on a wheel. No matter that General Ross called it: a room or his quarters, Steve knew it for what it really was. A cell. He was allowed paper and pencils so the time he had free from the experiments; the blood being drawn, the exercises they made him run as they recorded everything, he spent drawing.

The door to his cell had one tiny window that could be opened by sliding the small metal door to the side. Steve heard it slide open then shut. The guard was making sure that Steve was in there and then the door opened.

“What are you drawing today?” Tony asked.

He was the son of Howard Stark who had been a friend to Steve before his death. He was the master robotic engineer here. Steve liked Tony unlike all the other scientists Tony was different. Yet today Steve didn’t smile.

“How is Bucky today?”

Tony’s easy smile slipped off for one second but Steve saw it.

“The arm we attached didn’t respond well to his body, I think the metal was poisoning him. They are taking it off today and I want to try a new one. We are building it but it may take some more time.”

Steve stood up and walked over to Tony, he was taller than the dark haired man but he didn’t use his height to intimidate him, “Please just take care of him.” Steve pleaded. It had been so long since he had seen his friend.

Tony stared at him for a long moment, he fixed his long white scientist robe and then his brown eyes met Steve’s blue ones again, “He doesn’t know who you are. He may never remember Steve.”

“I don’t care.”

“I DO!” Tony ran a hand through his dark hair, he was visibly agitated now, “I care.”

Steve crossed his arms looked back at Tony and said, “You have to make sure he gets better so that we can get out of here.”

Tony looked at him sadly, “They will never let either of you go Steve, you know this.”

“You think I haven’t known that Tony? I know. I was the success experiment that helped them win a war. I was the captain America they all needed me to be. But when the war was done so was Captain America and he died in that war. Now I am just Steve. I only stay in this cage because I can’t help Bucky but you can. You can use your brain to figure out a way to keep him from dying. Try another arm anything but please save him.”

Tony rubbed his head as though he was getting a headache. Steve leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. Tony sighed again and then sat down heavily in Steve abandoned chair. Steve watched him think and then he saw Tony glance at the drawings. Tony stiffened when he saw them.

Steve knew that his friend tried to protect him from the truth but he wasn’t stupid he knew he was just another experiment.

Tony whispered quietly, “We can go now just you and me. They won’t know but we can be together.”

Steve wanted it. He wanted to run away with Tony these last years they had grown closer together as Tony visited him and tried to cheer him up. But he couldn’t he loved Bucky too.

“I can’t. Not without him.”

Tony’s dark eyes pleaded with Steve. Steve felt like his heart was going to burst from the anger at his situation. He couldn’t leave Bucky alone. He wanted Tony. He wanted to kiss that man and run away with him. He wanted so much but he loved Bucky first. He owed Bucky that chance too. A chance at a real life and not this hell. He didn’t know what to do so he stayed quiet.

Tony stood and walked out he turned back and said in a low voice so the guard wouldn’t hear him since he had already opened the door for Tony.

“I’m your friend too Steve. I will do what I can.”

Steve nodded to show him he had heard but he felt a lump in his throat his face burned because he felt like he should be the one to save them. Save them both. He knew Tony was drinking again. He knew Bucky needed him.

After the door was locked shut he finally let out his anger in one forceful yell as he swung his fist against the wall. A dent appeared and Steve threw himself on his bed as the lights went out. He squeezed his eyes tight. He imagined himself somewhere far away. Like the ocean. Sitting under the warm sun in the sand instead of in this cold metal room. Just him, Bucky, and Tony. Somewhere where they could be free.

**Author's Note:**

> This is just the first chapter. Its a bit short since it is an introduction but I am going to add more characters in the next one. I will update in a few weeks hopfully. Comments and Kudos are always welcome!
> 
> Edit: putting this story on the back burner until I watch shape of water. Fic on hiatus until further notice.


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